"What would be our plan for India... I wish I had an answer," says Agarwal. "The issue is, recovering any investment looks bleak. Downloads are great so should we just invest in this market. But for how many years, I don't know," he confesses.
Like most publishers in the mobile space,
Reliance Games too largely relies on freemium games to make money. Agarwal says
that 70 percent of the company's revenues are driven by in-app purchases (IAP),
and only 30 percent comes from ads.
Revenue from India is something Agarwal
says he does not even track due to its minuscule size. It's a problem shared by
many developers. When asked how things came to this, he puts the blame squarely
on Google.
"It's because of Google's stupidity
that they have not integrated carrier billing in Google Play. They're killing
the market," he says.
Nonetheless, he insists that third-party
app stores have the ability to fill in the void if
they're willing to spend on content aggregation.
"If
you look at it from the Indian context, if Google continues to be the way it is
with no IAP carrier billing, it is a great opportunity for someone like Zapak
or 9games or Mobogenie to really spend money on getting the right content [to
build a strong third-party app store portfolio]. We can all give SDKs and APIs
to developers," he says.
For
Agarwal, it's just a matter of when instead of how. And it just might be sooner
rather than later.
"I
think Google is just opening the market and forcing someone else to step up and
play the role that is legitimately theirs," he says. "The reason why
I've not really pressed the accelerator on it is that I'm hoping soon Google
will do it but it's a threshold of patience that is wearing thin."
From
licensing to original IP
At the
same time, he's also keen to change the kind of games that the company is
making. Reliance Games has pushed out many derivative licensed games based
around movies such as The Hunger Games, Pacific Rim, and Real Steel. The
company is predominantly a developer of games from movie properties, working to
make games based on Hollywood titles like Total Recall and After Earth.
Recently however, we've seen games based on original IPs such as Drone: Shadow
Strike and Ultimate Robot Fighting.
"We've
seen success with licensed IPs in our portfolio," says Agarwal. "Thanks
to the cashflow from these, we are able to make our own IP. Ultimately as a
human being you crave for something that you have created, that is the human
craving. But The business tells you that it's riskier proposition. In 2012 we
had zero appetite for risk. In 2014 we had some appetite for it hence two new
properties from us."
Ultimate
Robot Fighting, while bearing similarities to the successful Real Steel series
from Reliance Games, is a new IP for the company.
So has the
company forsaken the steady, revenue generating route of licensed games for the
vast unknown? Not quite.
"When
you take a look at our line-up this year, you'll see 20 percent being our own
IPs and 80 percent being IPs from others" he says. "I strongly
believe that with licensed games, at a practical level there is a discovery
cost saved. If licensed games can give you half a million downloads, [and you
can save] $1.50 cost per install on each download , the math is very
simple."
On the
topic of game discovery, with a slew of games on Google Play and the App Store,
it should be less of an issue since new games can piggyback on older, existing,
well-known games by having ads that point to them. This however, is only in
theory. Agarwal claims that the reality is a lot more nuanced than it seems.
"Cross-promotion
is only a function of having an active user base across all games,"
explains Agarwal. "There's no point in having them if they're not adding
to the network of yours. So for us, Real Steel franchise and Pacific Rim make
absolute sense, keep on cross-promoting, doing it. Let's take the example of
Dancing with the Stars - completely different genre and segment, game has
flopped. Why should we keep doing it? Now there's a thought to continue from
the portfolio standpoint. As I said I have not made up my mind, I'm getting
more gearing towards just clean up the store, there's no point in showing the
long tail."
As Agarwal
puts it, the app market is a numbers game, even if not all stakeholders are
doing their part to raise the numbers. Part of that is a project that Reliance
Games calls Game Hack, which will bring the company's ability to scale up a
game's reach to smaller indie developers. Reliance wants to tie up with small
developers around the world, and this will be a big part of the company's
future plans, as it tries to work the numbers in its favour.
"Today
we are scouting the globe," says Agarwal. "We are looking at
developers. I believe our studio can do two, three, maybe four games a year
maximum. But I can't be a two or three game studio. Not unless each game is a
30 to 40 million dollar success."
No comments:
Post a Comment